William Weasley and the Vault of Time
by Xeplin-Dredphyre
Summary: Bill Weasley takes a routine mission from Gringotts of Egypt to retrieve the White Crown of Teuphet-Ra. But things go awry in the depths of the tomb, and he must find a way to return with the Crown or risk the wrath of his employers. Not to mention, missing his family's vacation to Egypt in three weeks time. Such is the life of a Curse Breaker.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

A Test of Time

This was a particularly ingenious, if simple, trap. In nearly four years as Curse Breaker for Gringotts, William Weasley had never encountered such a devious trap. The sand poured into the tiny room from several holes over head. In minutes he would be buried alive, the danger of which wasn't the lack of oxygen; he had already cast a Bubblehead Charm just in case. No, the danger was that soon he'd be unable to perform any wand work as the sand enveloped him.

It was careless of him to have set off the trap in the first place. He knew he should have spotted the tell-tale signs of its existence. Like a flagstone completely detached from its surrounding mortar.

There was no Disapparating out of this predicament. These ancient Egyptian tombs had many features in common. For one, they almost always had Anti-Apparition and Anti-Disapparition charms in place. One could not simply Apparate from point to point within the confines of the tombs, nor Disapparate back to the surface (let alone to his cozy sea-side bungalow in Alexandria.) And this tomb was no different.

But William, or Bill as most people called him, remained calm despite the ever-flowing sand and the alarming rate at which he was losing head room. He smiled to himself thinking about where he'd gotten this particular laid-back trait…a trait so useful for his line of work. He certainly hadn't acquired it at Hogwarts; it wasn't something to be learned from a textbook. No, it was a characteristic gained from growing up with five younger brothers and one sister, not to mention a mother who was more often frantic than not.

Bill thought about his family. They'd be arriving in Egypt to visit him in a few weeks time. Poor payment indeed if he should bury himself alive and spoil their vacation. His mother would no doubt complain about his hair...

That's it! The inspiration came to him now as he swam chest deep in sand. He reached up through the Bubble Head charm and plucked ten long hairs from his ponytail.

"_Wingardium Leviosa_."

He sent the first strand of hair floating into one of the holes, forced it through the current of sand. His long red hair was easy to observe as it snaked its way upward. Then with a quick flick of his wand, he cast an Enlargement Charm and the hair strand swelled to plug the hole. It seemed to work perfectly…the soft hair didn't damage the surrounding stone work, but was strong enough to hold back the weight of sand behind it. Quickly his sent the other hair strands upward in a similar fashion and plugged the remaining holes. It looked rather odd seeing ten large red hairs dangling from the ceiling, as though he were some miniscule creature near the skin's surface.

"There we are then," he said with mild relief. His voice was tight in the confined space, and he thanked God (not for the first time) that he was not claustrophobic. Still, it was a bit unnerving to be trapped in a space the size of a coffin.

That feeling soon disappeared along with the sand as he began casting Vanishing charms. Within a few minutes, the small, bathroom-sized chamber was clear. Bill eyed the loose flagstone he'd stepped on which had triggered the trap and gave it a wide berth.

Bill aimed his wand at his robes and a small jet of air blew mildly outward, knocking the sand from his clothes. He kicked off his dragon hide boots one at a time and dumped the collected sand onto the floor. Once he was sand-free, he set his mind to the next task: Opening the doorway before him and finding the White Crown of Osiris, Hedjet.

Why the Goblins wanted it, he wasn't sure. He'd asked his liaison, Grunork in the Cairo office, but was told only to do his job. No questions. Goblins were like that. Secretive. Or perhaps it was because he was relatively new to Gringotts, in Goblin terms at least.

Another common feature of Egyptian tombs, while not strictly magical in nature, proved to be highly effective against magic. Namely, the construction of the tombs themselves. One incorrectly applied destruction spell, and the whole place could collapse on top of you, or worse yet destroy the treasure you were after. Not to mention wholesale destruction of Egyptian tombs, or parts therein, was frowned upon by the Egyptian Ministry of Magic.

Bill twirled his wand in his hand (much like the drummer for the Weird Sisters would do) as he contemplated the doorway and the massive stone that had fallen to block the passage. Often in these tombs, the simplest, most obvious course of action wasn't necessarily the best. As if to prove this point to himself yet again, he tried a Levitation Charm.

Nothing.

The stone shuddered, but failed to move. Most likely a circular or spherical keystone had rolled into place above it after it fell. The ancient Egyptian Wizards really knew their stuff. It was situations like these that highlighted one serious deficit in his Hogwarts education. Namely, the vast expanse of magic from other cultures that preceded magic in his own country by millennia. The very spell he just attempted, _levioso_, was purported to be, according to Professor Binns, one of the earliest created spells of Ancient England. But spells very much like it existed, he himself soon learned after joining Gringott's, well before that time in Egypt (and the Far East and the Americas as well.)

The practical effect of this knowledge meant that many counter-jinxes, counter-curses, and the like had to be modified to suit the more ancient forms of the magic. This is one of the challenges he really loved about working as a Curse Breaker. The unpredictable nature of the work made it challenging. Never a dull moment. Sometimes he wondered how his father could stand a desk job all these years.

This yellowish sandstone block, so simple, and yet so formidable, made him smile.

"All right then," he said to it as if addressing a worthy foe. "Let's try this." And with a swish of his reed wand, he shouted: "_Diminuendo_!"

A bit of dust fell from the stone block, but it remained untouched. Bill was sure that the Shrinking Charm would work. It had not. _Reducio _shouldn't work, as that's a counter to _Engorgio _which is only used on the living. Did that mean it had some sort of protective spell on it? If that were the case, he could be stuck here a long time. Vanishing spell perhaps?

"_Evanesco!_"

Again, nothing. Likely the block was simply too large. He twirled his reed wand for a few more minutes, thinking.

Bill's mind wandered back (not for the first time) to the day he got his reed wand. It was a few days after losing his original wand, an elder wand. Ollivander the wandmaker had warned him the elder wand would be difficult to keep unless he was exceptionally talented. His mom had gasped at such doubts.

"Of course he's exceptional!" Mrs. Weasley had said, to Bill's utter embarrassment as he hid behind Ollivander's counter. At that time he couldn't help but remember the stories and superstitions surrounding elder wands. "Wand of elder, never prosper." Or the horrible destruction caused by the Elder Wand of the Three Brothers fairy tale.

Surprisingly at first his elder wand worked brilliantly. Flitwick and McGonagall all remarked on the extraordinary precision of his early wand work. Yet toward the end of his first year, his skill declined dramatically as the wand became more and more difficult to control, like stirring thick molasses, until one day his elder wand simply vanished right in the middle of attempting to turn a mouse into a snuffbox. It was as though at Ollivanders the wand had initially chosen him, but then wrote him off as a bad investment. To this day Bill wondered what he'd done wrong to incur the wand's disdain. All modesty aside, he'd ended up a decent wizard by most accounts. What that elder wand could have wanted from him remained, to this day, a mystery. He was so embarrassed by the incident that he'd told his parents that it had been stolen. Mrs. Weasley certainly didn't enjoy shelling out more Galleons for a second wand.

And so his reed wand, twelve inches precisely, swishy, with a strand of Leprechaun beard at its core, spun over his knuckles as he twirled it. He liked this wand…mostly. It seemed particularly good at breaking curses where gold was involved. Though he couldn't help but nurse a longing for his old elder wand, especially in situations like these when he felt he'd chosen the correct spells to apply.

Then a brain wave came over him. Perhaps he hadn't chosen the correct spells after all. The stone was huge, so huge that he doubted several giants could lift it. What if it had been a smaller block initially and the builders had used an Enlargement spell on it after it was set in place. In that case, he might need the counter to that Enlargement spell.

"_Ponderabis_," he said with a spiraling wave of his wand.

The great sandstone block shuddered, and a gap on either side of it opened as it shrunk slightly.

Bill laughed to himself. God he loved his work. This was it. He was close, he just needed to modify the spell a bit. After a few more attempts, with varied inflections on the incantation and wand movement to compensate for the ancient magic, he finally reduced the block to the size of a Quaffle. He stepped lightly over it, and made his way carefully down the passage. So far so good. He must be getting close.

The light from Bill's wand spilled into a large chamber. Two rows of pillars stood to either side, disappearing into the darkness beyond. Along the walls to either side and encircling the pillars he saw hieroglyphics. The familiar dog and cat headed deities glared back at him with their leering, white-painted eyes. He recognized Osiris prominent amongst them, the deity's crook and flail crossed over his chest. Further evidence that this was indeed the correct tomb.

Bill began deciphering the hieroglyphs in his head as he moved steadily forward. A line from the Book of the Dead regarding Osiris caught his attention:

I am the first-born, the light of the sky. I breathe in the presence of a powerful god, under the belly of sky, upon the shoulder of Egypt. My breath is like a child to me. My breath hangs sweet in my nostrils. I am the blue egg of the Great Cackler. I grow. I swell. I sniff air. I live there like the wing of a goose.

Then he saw the name of the resident of this tomb in pictures: Loaf. Forearm. Rope coil. Stool. Twisted flax wick. Another Forearm. Another Loaf. A space. Mouth. Vulture. Together, the pictures spelled Teuphet-Ra. This was indeed the very tomb the Goblins had wanted him to investigate. With the number of tombs in Egypt, one could never be entirely sure.

His pulse began to race. The famed White Crown, lost to both Muggle and Wizard history, surely lay just ahead.

But then came a sound to his left and just ahead. Bill brought his wand around. Dark shadows played upon the hieroglyphs, cut by slashes of light. Was it a shuffling movement? Or was it just sand falling? Straight ahead, at the edge of his wand light, he saw a dais begin its rise, step by step, up to a gold and lapis lazuli sarcophagus in the shape of a hyena-headed man.

Its lid had been shoved aside.

"No," whispered Bill, a bit agitated. "They promised me no mummies. No mummies." He'd have a few choice words for Grunork if he was forced to deal with a mummy.

The shuffling sound came from Bill's left, where it darted between two pillars.

"Is someone there?" he asked into the shadows as he spun to his left.

It seemed rather stupid to ask the question, as mummies generally couldn't talk. Yet something about the movement was peculiar; it was too fast for a mummy. He brought his wand around to face the sarcophagus, but it was too late. The mummy was upon him.

The shambling mass of brown wrappings had snuck up on him whilst his attention had been diverted. Cloth strands shot forward like bizarre tentacles, binding his arms and body. Putrid oders of decay and old embalming chemicals nauseated him.

"_Diffindo!_" And with a stroke of his wand, Bill tried to cut the bandages before they became too tight. Several wrappings fell away like dead skin, but more sprang forth, entwining him. He slashed again, and again, but it was no use. Before long, he was immobilized. Quite apart from the shock of the mummy sneaking up on him, he'd never heard of mummies behaving in this manner. It was as if…

Then the source of the sound to his left became clear. A witch stepped out from behind a pillar. Raven black hair framed a look of triumph on her beautiful olive face; her lustrous dark eyes had a magic all their own. In one hand she bore what could only be the White Crown…clearly Goblin-made silver. In the other hand her wand, and a device he knew only too well. He'd used one in his third year at Hogwarts to take more classes than his schedule would normally permit.

The witch slung the Time Turner over the mummy and Bill's necks, where the little hour glass hung swaying between them.

"I'd ask for the next dance," Bill said as he smiled at her despite the trap she'd clearly set for him. "But I'm a bit tied up at the moment."

"Good bye, William Weasley," she said in a Spanish accent, a sly grin crossing her face. And with those words, she touched her wand to the Time Turner, sending the hour glass spinning madly in reverse and plunging him into darkness.


	2. Chapter 2: By Hook or by Crook

CHAPTER 2

By Hook or by Crook

Whwww! Whww! Whwwwwww!

Bill blew as hard as he could at the whirling Time Turner in an attempt to slow it down. To no avail. He tried to whip his ponytail around and entangle it, but the mummy wrappings had pinned his hair tightly to his back. As time spun by, he noted with wry satisfaction that the mummy hadn't, in fact, snuck up on him. That witch had charmed the desiccated corpse into shambling whilst bewitching it to unfurl its bandages.

She had surprised him in action and intent. Well done, he thought. Well done. Good dueling wizards and witches almost always had some skill in Legilimency or Occlumency, or both. It was possible, however, to compensate for a lacking in either skill through creative use of spells, spells used in non-traditional ways. In this way, any Legilimency used against a wizard practicing such deceits would garner the Legilimens only confused or even false intentions. It was the difference between obfuscation and misinformation. That was the theory. And of course this all happens within fractions of a second in the harried duel.

Focus Bill! He'd let his mind wander again. Yet there seemed little he could do. He tried craning his neck down and grabbed the neck chain with his teeth. If he could pull the thing close, he might be able to stop it. But the chain got hung up in the mummy's wrapping somehow and pull as he might, it would not come loose.

"GAH!" he bellowed in frustration. He tried thrashing around to tip himself and the mummy over, but the mummy seemed as immovable as the pillars around him.

How long he stood there lost in darkness and idle thoughts, he had no idea. Time Turner. He'd used one in his third year at Hogwarts. Professor McGonagall had approved the use of one of the weaker devices so that he could enroll in more classes. That version only allowed time travel dawn through dusk. Essentially daylight hours, which was deemed suitable for certain students to use, though it was rare. Professor McGonagall (why did he still call her Professor?) in fact sent him an owl a few weeks before his current misadventure asking his thoughts on its use by another student, Hermione Granger. He supposed since she was friends with his youngest brother Ron, that McGonagall thought he might have some insight. But Ron rarely wrote him, let alone mention Hermione. All he knew about her was that she was exceptionally talented for her age, and that she loved the library. The only advice Bill was able to impart to McGonagall was that the workload, being exceptionally rigorous and time consuming, necessitated a real passion for the subjects. If you didn't like a particular subject, it would begin to feel like a waste of your extra time.

Oh, and sleep. Because one was cramming 24, 25, 26 hours into a day, you had correspondingly more 'awake' hours than you normally might have. He developed a trick of turning back time right before dusk so that he could sleep ten hours a day. Even then, the schedule was exhausting.

Well, this Time Turner was certainly different. Perhaps the rarest type of Time Turner. Decades, if not centuries, were spinning by. Out there beyond the tomb, kingdoms rose and fell, inventions became unknown, songs went out of practice. And for once, Bill was actually becoming unnerved. How was he ever going to find his way back? It was the sort of magic you simply could never have learned, nor anticipated in school.

There came a sudden flash of light and an image imprinted on the back of his eyes. Sort of like a photograph, but it was blurred nearly beyond recognition. All he could make out in that flash was the interior of the tomb, as though someone had entered and left, though their movement was too infinitesimally small to register. One thing struck him to the quick: the paint on the hieroglyphs was dazzling, new.

Then, the ground began to shudder for many long minutes. Suddenly the sky opened up above, and the pain of bright light stung his eyes. The tomb, brick by mammoth brick, was disappearing around him. Before he knew it, the floor disappeared from beneath him. And in the time it took the mummy and himself to fall, a series of small pits had opened up in desert floor, one directly below.

Regaining his wits, Bill twisted in mid air, putting the mummy beneath. It acted like a cushion as the bound forms struck the bottom of the pit and bounced. The Time Turner flew off and over the lip of pit. The temporal stream stopped, and Bill landed hard on the mummy again, bandages tore and fell away.

It was day, midday in fact, as the light from the sun filled the shallow pit evenly. It was also quite hot, though Bill was used to that. He lay there quiet for a moment, listening. He heard in the distance a cacophonous, surging roar. It sounded like a massive crowd of people tinged with high-pitched, cracking sounds. He eased himself off the mummy and dared to peak over the bank.

The sight that greeted him was like nothing he'd ever seen before. Thousands upon thousands of Muggles toiled all around him. Here and there hundreds of them were harnessed to large blocks of sandstone, pulling these monoliths forward over large logs that served as wheels. In other areas, Muggles worked the stone with hammers and chisels. There seemed to be many other tasks going on which Bill couldn't readily identify.

Yet one thing was quite clear from the sounds of whips. These Muggles were slaves. What's more, their masters were wizards. Or at least the very top echelon were. Dozens of silver-white Patronuses flitted or lumbered about the vast work area: Hawks, falcons, cats, ibises, crocodiles, hippopotami, hyenas, camels…most of which Bill was familiar with, having worked with the Egyptian Ministry of Magic on a number of occasions. What struck him as wholly out of place was the blatant use of magic. But even as this shock stole over him, he realized why this was. The signing of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was perhaps some 3 millennia in the future.

Bill slumped back into his pit and rubbed his face vigorously with both hands, as if this would wake him up from some wild dream. But it wasn't a dream. The Time Turner had transported him back to the very start of construction on Teuphet-Ra's tomb. But when was that? He'd never thought it important to memorize all the names of Egyptian Dynasties, nor their chronological order. He supposed Grunork might know this, but a lot of good that would do him.

And who was this witch that had such a vendetta against him? Or was it simply a grudge against Gringotts? She'd addressed him as William. Nobody called him that, except his mother, and then only when she was furious with him (an occurrence, he was thankful, hadn't happened in a number of years.)

Was someone at Gringotts setting him up? Trying to take the credit for the Crown, or even sell it? He was sure that Crown would fetch thousands of Galleons on the black market. Selling artifacts, grifting, or 'making the tomb light of Galleons' were all criminal activates the Goblins ceaselessly guarded against. They hired only the most scrupulous warlocks and witches with impeccable and verifiable honesty. Beyond that, they sought out wizards who craved rewards other than money. While the pay was decent, Bill often brought home ten, twenty, thirty times his salary in gold or artifacts. But the Goblins new this about Bill…he'd never run afoul of them because he loved the adventure of his job too much. It was, as they say, the challenge of the journey and not the monetary reward that he loved.

Yet sitting there in a pit somewhere and some time in ancient Egypt, he felt as though he wasn't quite getting paid enough. Although, to be fair, the thousands of slaves around him now were lucky to live out the day. He couldn't complain that much.

So this witch. It was highly unlikely she worked for Gringotts. It's not how they operated. There were rumors that dark power was stirring in the world. Harry Potter clearly engaged with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his dark arts recently, having saved Bill's very own sister from a horrible fate. Could this women be connected to these events somehow? But why target him? Bill smirked. Perhaps his ego was blinding him; the Crown might be the only thing important here. He wasn't Harry Potter after all, just happened to be in the way. And as a witness to the thief, he needed to disappear without a trace. But surely there were easier ways though? He couldn't get over the fact that it seemed planned. He shook his head. Too many questions right now. He needed to take stock of his situation, his resources.

Then someone or something seemed to laugh behind him beyond the pit.

The Time Turner!

Bill nearly jumped out of the hole, but was too late. A great silver falcon sprang into the air clutching the amulet in its claws.

"_Accio Time Turner!_"

The chain went taunt, but the birds grip was sure and tight. For a split second he thought of giving chase, of mounting a magical pursuit. But was quickly reminded of the sheer number of visible Egyptian wizards surrounding him. If he wasn't careful, they'd all be descending on him. Bill ducked back into the trench, cursing, "Merlin's saggy left…!" He trailed off. Why hadn't he retrieved the amulet immediately? He kicked the mummy hard.

"Settle down Bill," he told himself. He was starting to come unhinged, something he rarely did. Now he had to find the Time Turner if he ever wanted to return home. Think!

He pulled out a small pouch and upon opening it, summoned his lunch into his lap. A nice feta cheese pita sandwich. Unfortunately, it was his only one. Certain he'd return home before dinner, he'd only packed one sandwich.

He duplicated it and put the new one back in his pouch. It would do for now, but living off nothing but the same pita sandwich would soon become monotonous. As he ate the sandwich (surprised at how hungry he really was), he wracked his brains for some glimmer, some spark of inspiration. Even if he retrieved the Time Turner, how many turns? If he could figure out the date, how precise could he actually be in landing back at his time and place? Any number of paradoxes could arise. He had to be certain to follow the rules governed by the use of Time Turners. Or did he? Surely the normal rules didn't quite apply here. He was so far back in time that his presence shouldn't be a disruption, at least as far as wizarding rules go. Losing the Time Turner itself was likely a huge violation, but only dangerous if the eventual recipient discovered how to use it. He must be mindful of the larger picture and not do anything that disrupted the greater history. Yet how could he be certain that interfering with one slave didn't somehow trigger echoing events through the timeline like ripples in a pond?

God he hated time paradoxes. He didn't want to think about it. He was going to retrieve the Time Turner, be as inconspicuous as possible, and let the consequences fall where they may.

That plan went out the door almost as soon as he finished his sandwich.

A crowd of men, harnessed to one of the rocks, appeared slowly over the lip of his pit. They saw him sitting there, with the mummy no less, and dropped their ropes, screaming something unintelligible as they ran.

He crouched in the pit and quickly cast a Disillusionment Charm, being quite sure that his pale skin and red hair would stand out as foreign. Standing slowly, he peered over the edge of the pit.

Before him a richly dressed Egyptian approached. The man wore brilliant white robes tied with a golden belt. Golden bangles hung loosely around his wrists, and a gold and lapis necklace of square beads hung around his neck. His dark, thick beard tapered to a point, bound with an occasional gold ring. He seemed to be surveying the open pit cautiously.

Before Bill could react, the Egyptian raised his shepherd's crook and a bolt of bluish light shot forth. It struck Bill square in the chest, and his Disillusionment Charm broke as he felt the familiar sensation of the spell lifting.

There was nothing for it. Bill brought the leprechaun wand around in a defensive position. The Egyptian yelled something in a language Bill could not understand. Their eyes locked on one another, neither moved for the longest of moments. The Egyptian again yelled something, of which Bill understood one word. Apapi. Or as Bill knew it, Apep, the Egyptian God of Darkness.

What was meant by this name, Bill hadn't time to discover. The Egyptian flicked his crook and flung a spell at Bill who raised his own wand and deflected it. Another spell sent sand flying at him in an attempt to blind.

"_Protego!_" The sand hit the barrier like storm debris hitting glass. Bill needed to flee. He saw many Patronuses heading toward him. He wasn't about to take on this wizard and risk the lot of Egyptian wizards battling him. With the sand cloud as cover, he dived out of the small pit, and once clear, focused on the only destination he could see that might hide him. He spun quickly, and Disapparated, appearing a few hundred yards away in small copse of palm trees and sparse grass. Ducking quickly behind a palm, he cast a color change charm on his hair and skin, then set off down a small gulley wondering if his situation could get any worse.


End file.
